We propose a novel high-performance interpretable deep tabular data learning network, TabNet. TabNet utilizes a sequential attention mechanism to choose which features to reason from at each decision step and then aggregates the processed information towards the final decision. Explicit selection of sparse features enables more efficient learning as the model capacity at each decision step is fully utilized for the most relevant features, and also more interpretable decision making via visualization of selection masks. We demonstrate that TabNet outperforms other neural network and decision tree variants on a wide range of tabular data learning datasets while yielding interpretable feature attributions and insights into the global model behavior.

The SMART Forecasting team at Walmart Labs is tasked with providing demand forecasts for over 70 million store-item combinations every week! For example, just how much of every type of ginger needs to go to every Walmart store in the U.S., every week for the next 52 weeks, with the goal of improving in stocks and reducing food waste. Our algorithm strategy was to build a suite of machine learning models and deploy them at scale to generate bespoke solutions for (oh so many!) store-item-week combinations. Random Forests would be part of this suite. We went through the traditional model development workflow of data discovery, identifying demand drivers, feature engineering, training, cross validation and testing.

State-of-the-art learning algorithms, such as random forests or neural networks, are often qualified as "black-boxes" because of the high number and complexity of operations involved in their prediction mechanism. This lack of interpretability is a strong limitation for applications involving critical decisions, typically the analysis of production processes in the manufacturing industry. In such critical contexts, models have to be interpretable, i.e., simple, stable, and predictive. To address this issue, we design SIRUS (Stable and In-terpretable RUle Set), a new classification algorithm based on random forests, which takes the form of a short list of rules. While simple models are usually unstable with respect to data perturbation, SIRUS achieves a remarkable stability improvement over cutting-edge methods. Furthermore, SIRUS inherits a predictive accuracy close to random forests, combined with the simplicity of decision trees. These properties are assessed both from a theoretical and empirical point of view, through extensive numerical experiments based on our R/C++ software implementation sirus.

These pro-3 grams rely on patterns and inference, rather than explicit instructions, to achieve their aims [5]. ML in construction has been developed significantly since 1991 when [6] first discussed the potential of neural networks in construction engineering and management. Early examples of ML in construction include applications such as [7] where the AQ15 algorithm was applied to automatically learn the mapping between constructability (poor, good, excellent) and 7 predictors from a collection of 31 training examples; and [8] who applied decision trees and neural networks to a construction management database to identify the causes of delays. Many subsequent prediction applications applied support vector machines (SVMs), owing to their consistently high accuracy. These applications include [9], who accurately forecasted contractor prequalification using input variables such as financial strength and current workload; [10], who estimated building cost and loss risk from ten input variables; and [11], who detected concrete structural components in color images from actual construction sites. In the last 5 years, use of ML in construction has become far more widespread and the methods and applications used are far more diverse.

--Uplift modeling is an emerging machine learning approach for estimating the treatment effect at an individual or subgroup level. It can be used for optimizing the performance of interventions such as marketing campaigns and product designs. Uplift modeling can be used to estimate which users are likely to benefit from a treatment and then prioritize delivering or promoting the preferred experience to those users. An important but so far neglected use case for uplift modeling is an experiment with multiple treatment groups that have different costs, such as for example when different communication channels and promotion types are tested simultaneously. In this paper, we extend standard uplift models to support multiple treatment groups with different costs. We evaluate the performance of the proposed models using both synthetic and real data. We also describe a production implementation of the approach. Uplift modeling [1]-[8] is a technique to estimate and predict the individual-level or subgroup-level causal effects of different treatments in an experiment. This type of information is useful for designing and offering a personalized experience to improve user experience, satisfaction, and engagement. Uplift modeling is therefore commonly used in areas such as marketing, customer service, and product offering. It is helpful to think about uplift modeling in the context of randomized experiments (also known as A/B testing [9]-[11]). In a typical experiment, users are randomly assigned to each treatment group and causal effects are then estimated for the population.

I posted this a few months ago and had some great feedback. I've put some work into the model and have just released the latest update. It uses a modified version of C4.5 decision trees and a load of other adjustments. Think it is working better now after some changes around the classification process.

There is an increasing interest in estimating heterogeneity in causal effects in randomized and observational studies. However, little research has been conducted to understand heterogeneity in an instrumental variables study. In this work, we present a method to estimate heterogeneous causal effects using an instrumental variable approach. The method has two parts. The first part uses subject-matter knowledge and interpretable machine learning techniques, such as classification and regression trees, to discover potential effect modifiers. The second part uses closed testing to test for the statistical significance of the effect modifiers while strongly controlling familywise error rate. We conducted this method on the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, estimating the effect of Medicaid on the number of days an individual's health does not impede their usual activities, and found evidence of heterogeneity in older men who prefer English and don't self-identify as Asian and younger individuals who have at most a high school diploma or GED and prefer English.

When randomized ensemble methods such as bagging and random forests are implemented, a basic question arises: Is the ensemble large enough? In particular, the practitioner desires a rigorous guarantee that a given ensemble will perform nearly as well as an ideal infinite ensemble (trained on the same data). The purpose of the current paper is to develop a bootstrap method for solving this problem in the context of regression --- which complements our companion paper in the context of classification (Lopes 2019). In contrast to the classification setting, the current paper shows that theoretical guarantees for the proposed bootstrap can be established under much weaker assumptions. In addition, we illustrate the flexibility of the method by showing how it can be adapted to measure algorithmic convergence for variable selection. Lastly, we provide numerical results demonstrating that the method works well in a range of situations.

We show the equivalence of discrete choice models and the class of binary choice forests, which are random forest based on binary choice trees. This suggests that standard machine learning techniques based on random forest can serve to estimate discrete choice model with an interpretable output. This is confirmed by our data driven result that states that random forest can accurately predict the choice probability of any discrete choice model. Our framework has unique advantages: it can capture behavioral patterns such as irrationality or sequential searches; it handles nonstandard formats of training data that result from aggregation; it can measure product importance based on how frequently a random customer would make decisions depending on the presence of the product; it can also incorporate price information. Our numerical results show that binary choice forest can outperform the best parametric models with much better computational times.

N-grams have been a common tool for information retrieval and machine learning applications for decades. In nearly all previous works, only a few values of $n$ are tested, with $n > 6$ being exceedingly rare. Larger values of $n$ are not tested due to computational burden or the fear of overfitting. In this work, we present a method to find the top-$k$ most frequent $n$-grams that is 60$\times$ faster for small $n$, and can tackle large $n\geq1024$. Despite the unprecedented size of $n$ considered, we show how these features still have predictive ability for malware classification tasks. More important, large $n$-grams provide benefits in producing features that are interpretable by malware analysis, and can be used to create general purpose signatures compatible with industry standard tools like Yara. Furthermore, the counts of common $n$-grams in a file may be added as features to publicly available human-engineered features that rival efficacy of professionally-developed features when used to train gradient-boosted decision tree models on the EMBER dataset.